Milestone Systems recently hosted its annual Milestone Integration Platform Symposium (MIPS) in Hollywood, Calif., a partner event that attracted several hundred integrators, manufacturers, distributors and other value-added resellers.

Held at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel & Spa (a stone’s throw from the Kodak Theatre, home to the Academy Awards), the 7th annual event was chockablock with networking and knowledge-sharing sessions, technology presentations, workshops and training certifications.

Milestone President and CEO Lars Thinggaard addressed the assemblage during the opening general session and provided a forcefully optimistic business update for the company. After taking aggressive actions in 2008 to safeguard its finances in the down economy, Thinggaard said Milestone’s revenues grew 20 percent in 2009 and the company posted its “best December ever.”

“We have the strongest bottom line in the VMS industry,” he proclaimed.

Moving forward, Thinggaard said his goal is to align the company with 7,000 additional certified channel partners during the next five years. A sizeable number for sure, but he said with 80 percent of the video surveillance market still using analog — and with concurrent efforts to train many thousands of new users on the company’s solutions — the growth potential is very real.   

Milestone, indeed a leading provider of open IP video surveillance software noted for its broad support of third-party cameras and security systems, used the opening general session to air a live Webinar to officially release its XProtect Corporate 3.1 offering. Eric Fullerton, chief of sales and marketing officer, detailed the product’s updated user interface, Smart Client 5.0. Fullerton explained the “groundbreaking functionality” of the video management software is designed for large-scale, mission-critical security installations that can support unlimited cameras and users.

Besides hearing from Milestone management during the three-day event, MIPS speakers included Martin Gren, founder of Axis Communications; Mike McCann, manager of solutions engineering for Sony Electronics; and John Honovich, founder of IPVideoMarket.info, who presented “Camera Test Results and How to Win Business.”

A massive city surveillance case study from the Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ), located in Incheon, South Korea, was discussed by Jo Stark, global director of digital video surveillance at IBM Global Technology Services. Other presentations included a retail case by Alan Greggo, associate vice president, loss prevention at Luxottica Retail; an education case by Chief Barbara O’Connor, director of public safety at the University of Illinois; and a transportation case study by Steve Miller, intelligent traffic systems (ITS) project manager at the Harris County Toll Road Authority in Texas.

Among the Milestone Solution Partners (MSP) and Manufacturer Alliance Partners (MAPs) exhibiting at the MIPS event were Arecont Vision, Axis Communications, Firetide, Intransa, JVC, Panasonic, Pelco, Pivot3, S2 Security Corp., Sony and Tri-Ed.

James Rothstein, senior vice president of marketing for Tri-Ed, said his company’s participation at the MIPS event aided its 2010 corporate initiative to provide IP training and expertise to its customers and to staff IP specialists at each of its branches.

“We feel it’s very important to be here not only for our relationship with Milestone, but for developing relationships with other partners in the Milestone ecosystem as well,” Rothstein told me from the bustling product exhibit floor. “It’s also a great networking event to meet integrators as well as build our knowledge base as part of the certification training.”

MIPS also serves as a venue each year to bestow Milestone’s Partner of the Year awards. The following companies were honored during the gala symposium dinner:

MAP of the Year — Axis Communications

MSP of the Year — Johnson Controls

Distributor of the Year — Anixter

Partner of the Year — Digital Surveillance Solutions

Most Explosive Growth of the Year —Pro-Tec Design

Most Spectacular Install of the Year — SecureNet (Waco Independent School District) 

Rodney Bosch
Managing Editor
SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION 

In the spirit of the Oscars this year, SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION has decided to give out its own feature film awards. Instead of trekking down to a remote theater on Hollywood Boulevard to search out the movies nominated for Best Foreign Language film, we wanted to bring the awards home.

We dug into our DVD library for the best video surveillance scenes Hollywood has to offer. After getting comfortable on our leather couch and firing up the flat-panel (HD, of course) television, we searched out the most memorable surveillance scenes in movies.

We’ve prepared a list, but we like a good conversation as much as a good popcorn thriller, so we’d like to hear from you. Please post below or E-mail SSI Web Editor Paul Clinton (paul.clinton@bobit.com) with your favorite movies and scenes, and tell us what made them memorable for you. We will post a sampling of your responses after the Academy Awards show.

Here are our picks (in alphabetical order):

“The Bourne Ultimatum” (2007): All three Jason Bourne movies have a memorable surveillance sequence — how about the embassy sequence in “The Bourne Identity”? — but we like the tactical pursuit in the third installment in a London train terminal when p/t/z cameras point toward Bourne (Matt Damon), and the government official heading the operation says, “Give me all of CCTV’s eyes.”



“Enemy of the State” (1998): The tagline tells you all you need to know about this dark, D.C. thriller starring Will Smith, “It’s not paranoia if they really are after you.” The Hollywood espionage thrillers usually have a sequence where the tech geeks pull a nifty trick out of their hat. In this clip, they identify a package switch using frame-by-frame video analysis.



“Minority Report” (2002): This sci-fi film based on author Philip Dick’s short story introduced the concept of “pre-crime,” where you can be prosecuted for a crime you have yet to commit. Tom Cruise, a police detective, watches future evidence arrive about his crime on a monitoring station in the detective bureau, before going on the run from pursuing officers.



“Ocean’s Eleven” (2001): Planning a heist to beat the surveillance system of a Las Vegas casino may sound like madness, but how about planning three heists to beat three systems at three Las Vegas casinos? When you have Brad Pitt, George Clooney AND Matt Damon, well now maybe that doesn’t sound so outlandish. One of movie’s great scenes involves Pitt and Clooney visiting a security expert (played by Eliot Gould), who tells them their plan is impossible.



“P2” (2007): We’re not sure how many people saw this creepy set-piece thriller involving a monitoring guard who traps a young woman in a parking structure and torments her with, among other things, Elvis Presley music.



“Panic Room” (2002): Jody Foster and her daughter become prisoners in their own house, as three criminals menace them from outside a panic room. In this clip, the criminals learn the difference between an intercom and P.A. system, as Foster watches them on a bank of monitors. They flash cards with messages to communicate with her.



“Snake Eyes” (1998): A slick, corrupt Atlantic City detective (Nicolas Cage) gets a wake-up call, when he becomes embroiled in a murder investigation that was caught on surveillance cameras. The more he watches, the more he learns just who should be responsible for a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels.



“Truman Show” (1998): A happy-go-lucky Jim Carrey slowly begins to realize that his entire life is a show and he’s being watched by millions of fans. The movie has a lot to say about “reality television,” and the eventual loss of innocence of the participants. And the trailer shows the 5,000 cameras recording his every move.

The March issue of SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION features the results of our third, biannual Security Industry Demographic Census. The 2010 study includes nearly 300 managers from all levels of installing security dealer and systems integration organizations, many of whom came via the gracious and appreciated assistance of the Electronic Security Association (ESA), Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA) and (ISC organizer) Reed Exhibitions.

While the printed report is overflowing with loads of compelling and valuable data, space did not provide for comparisons with the prior 2008 study. So, I thought I would list some of them here as a sort of companion to the printed piece. This is the first of two installments I will provide and focuses on the personal or individual data as opposed to the business statistics I will cover in another posting. Here goes ...


NOTE: The data in parenthesis represents the 2005 results.

Average age: 51 (50)

Percentage male: 90% (92%)

Percentage black/African-American: 1% (2%)

Percentage Latin American, Mexican, Hispanic, Chicano, South American, Cuban: 3% (2%)

Percentage college graduate: 37% (39%)

Percentage some college: 36% (27%)

Percentage graduate degree: 6% (11%)

Percentage married: 84% (85%)

Percentage never married: 4% (7%)


SSI's Demographic Census profiles managers, owners and operators of security businesses.

Percentage Democrat: 15% (21%)

Percentage Libertarian: 4% (2%)

Percentage Independent: 9% (11%)

Percentage Catholic: 27% (29%)

Percentage Baptist: 10% (15%)

Percentage 30+ years' in industry: 23% (16%)

Percentage with law enforcement/firefighting ex

No matter how sophisticated of a residential installation you may have ever been involved with it is unlikely to approach the scale of the home featured in a new story posted on the MainStreet Web site this past weekend. Titled, "The Safest House in the World," the article details how the $7.6 million Los Angeles residence is equipped with a panic rooms (yes, plural), remote-controlled semi-automatic weapons, extensive surveillance and "safe cores" within the structure to gain protection from nuclear, biological or chemical attack. Incredible, right?

Check out the full story here.

Scott Goldfine
Editor-in-Chief
SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION

SSI’s “Monitoring Matters” columnist Peter Giacalone has returned full time to pursuing consultation work after recently departing from his position as president of Mace Security Int’l Inc.’s Security Services Division.

Giacalone, who resides in New York, told me his short tenure with Mace ended amicably and, in fact, he has been retained by the company in a consultative role working on strategic relations and business development.

In the end it was all about geography.

Giacalone, former COO of Criticom Int’l, has chalked up more than 30 years of professional service to the electronic security industry, all the while calling the East Coast his home. He had been operating his own consulting business for about four years when Mace CEO and President Dennis Raefield persuaded him to join the company last year to take charge of its newly acquired Central Station Security Systems (CSSS), an Anaheim, Calif.-based third-party monitoring center. It was Giacalone, as a Mace consultant in the beginning, who played a key role in making that deal happen.

After joining Mace, Giacalone maintained his roots in New York, shuttling back and forth between the two coasts, spending one week each month onsite at Mace CSSS. Eventually the board of directors insisted Giacalone remain based full time in Southern California.

“I have nothing against Southern California, but I am East Coast guy. When I decided not to move out there they asked if I would stay on in a consulting role because there is a lot more that needs to be accomplished,” Giacalone says.

Instead of filling Giacalone’s position, Raefield and Mace CSSS Director of Operations Morgan Hertel will assume the majority of his responsibilities.

Giacalone is quick to emphasize his relationship with Mace remains “extremely strong.” At the moment, Giacalone is heading up Mace’s negotiation and due diligence efforts to acquire additional wholesale monitoring accounts and/or another central station.

“I actually feel more nimble right now from this position [as a consultant] because obviously I don’t have all the responsibilities I had before. I am able to make more headway in negotiating with vendors, working with clients. I am still working closely with Morgan and Dennis and other people in the organization to bring this business where we intended to bring it,” he says.

Rodney Bosch
Managing Editor
SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION

I had the pleasure of conducting a roundtable interview with a small group of presidents and executive managers at the recent First Alert Professional Conference in San Diego. The bulk of that sit-down — chockablock with industry insight and business acumen — is featured in SSI’s February edition. But here I’d like to share with you the assemblage’s thoughts on the advantages their companies reap from aligning with a dealer program such as First Alert.

The participants included Mel Mahler, chairman of the board and CEO of Nashville, Tenn.-based ADS Security; Pat Egan, president of Lancaster, Pa.-based Select Security; Philip Gardner, president of Wilmington, Del.-based B-Safe Security; and Jim Callahan, COO, and Mike Sandes, vice president, of Atlanta-based Ackerman Security.

What benefits do you derive from being a member of the First Alert program?

Pat Egan: I have long been impressed with the sheer number of dollars that they put into engineering. When you look at other manufacturers I think clearly Honeywell has embraced and put the money into engineering newer, better, faster alarm products.

Philip Gardner: It’s definitely the networking with other dealers. The time we get to talk about common problems, whether it be labor or pricing or anything. We get together several times a year and I can pick up the phone at any time, call Mel, call Pat, call any of these guys in this room. We may have an installation that needs to go in Atlanta and we have called Ackerman before and they have called us to do installations for them.

Jim Callahan: One of the benefits we derive from this particular dealer network is that this manufacturer does keep us on the cutting edge of technology. They have reacted more quickly to consumer demands, residential or commercial, in the last five to eight years than probably the previous 20. That enables them to provide products that we need. First Alert is better than many if not all dealer programs that I personally have had affiliation with at supporting that. By that I mean they do have the regional players that come in to the offices, provide the training, provide the literature, provide the support mechanisms — both sales and marketing wise, as well as technical — to make sure what we are buying is being installed properly, being as effective as it can, and that our sales and marketing personnel are capable of going out and representing it properly. With this particular dealership it adds quite a bit of value that we get out of Honeywell.

Mel Mahler: One of the big differences is most of the Honeywell representatives came from our side of the business. They didn’t come from the manufacturing side. So they really understand what we deal with. Greg McGlocklin who heads up the Dealer Development Group [DDG] comes in with his team and trains our people on how to interview. Think about it. Probably the weakest link in any company in getting quality people is how you interview. How you do reference checks and so forth. 

Mike Sandes: If you are buying product today you are saddling up to GE, Bosch or Honeywell. You know what happened with GE and UTC. So what horse is left? We picked the right horse. Honeywell is the premiere manufacturer in the business. First Alert as a dealer network is premiere and the best in the business. Look at their history. They are chockfull of expertise and they are there for you when you have a problem, whether it be a product problem or a solution that you need or expertise. We are saddled up with the best, eh Jim?  

Callahan: The essence of any dealer program is really nothing more than a marketing arm to add accounts. They aren’t doing any training. If you look at other dealer programs, the whole purpose of them is nothing more than an extension of a marketing arm or a sales function. At one point in time ADT’s dealers outperformed, outsold the branch locations. While the goal of Honeywell is to help us sell product, their sole interest isn’t in buying contracts from us. Their sole interest is helping us grow our business. There is a strong tie that is obviously beneficial to both sides of the house in doing that and it has worked quite nicely. Ackerman got involved in the Honeywell program in 1992.

A few years ago The Discovery Channel aired a reality series called, "It Takes a Thief." The show was really cool because it brought security concepts and solutions into America's living rooms, and did so in an entertaining way. The premise had a former burglar breaking into and ransacking a house while the homeowner watched on TV monitors with the show's host. For participating, the homeowner would then receive a free security "makeover." SSI was so enamored with the program that I wrote a cover story on it and teamed with the stars of the show for a keynote at ISC East followed by a meet-and-greet and autograph-signing session for attendees at our exhibit booth. This enterprise really shook up the industry and drew notoriety.

I bring all this up because The Learning Channel, which is part of the Discovery network, is launching a new security-themed reality show this spring (pilot aired this past October) called, "Mall Cops: Mall of America." Although it is not as directly aimed at electronic security as "It Takes a Thief," Mall of America's (MOA) huge staff of security officers do rely on our industry's tools to help accomplish their mission of keeping the landmark shopping destination safe. MOA's recent conversion of 300 analog cameras into an IP-based solution landed it on SSI's February issue cover with my extensive case study featured inside.

More than 40 million people visit Minnesota's Mall of America each year.

The article includes a sidebar about the "Mall Cops" TV show, for which I interviewed its co-executive producer, Eric Streit. He shared with me additional details about the show's special location, what's involved in the production and MOA's impressive security force. So here is the rest of that exclusive interview along with several bonus photos.   

What inspired this show? Was it the success of the recent Kevin James movie where he plays a mall cop?

Eric Streit: I think, certainly, the success of the film may have played into the title of our series, but the series we’re making is a documentary series about the daily lives of the secured cops. Basically, what our show is that we’re looking at the Mall of America through the eyes of security officers. So, everything they do in their day-to-day life, we’re a part of. Whether it’s lifesaving medical emergencies, whether it’s lost children, shoplifting, disorderly conduct, what we’re doing here at Mall of America is just kind of a fly-on-the-wall observation of the security officers in a professional environment and just watching them do the work that they do. It’s really very fascinating. I don’t think people realize that the Mall of America has better training for their security force than most midsize city police forces. They have a K-9 unit. It’s amazing the training that goes on here. So many of the officers are veterans of the U.S. military, which I think will come as a surprise to a lot of people. There is a certain stereotype when you think security officers for the mall, and these guys don’t fit that at all. I think one of the great things this show is going to do is break that stereotype, turn it on its head and show these guys the professionals that they are.

MOA includes 520 storefronts and a 7-acre amusement park.

Was it always going to be that particular mall? How was that determined?

Streit: When you think of a mall, the first one I think popped into anyone’s mind was the Mall of America. It’s a symbol of malls everywhere; it’s a symbol of America. If you’re going to make a show about a mall, Mall of America is always going to be your first choice. We were fortunate enough to establish a great relationship here. I don’t think we ever considered anything but Mall of America because it’s the iconic mall, not just for the country, but the world.

So does the show focus any closer on certain members, or just whoever?

Streit: Basically, we have not asked the mall to change their operations in any way. We basically show up. We have four crews who are shooting, and whatever officers are on schedule are the officers we’re assigned to follow. Whatever calls

Axis Communications has shaken up the video surveillance industry by becoming the first provider of relatively inexpensive, fully networked thermal imaging cameras. Thermal imaging, which creates images based on the heat that radiates from any object, vehicle or person, has traditionally been dominated by military technology and came at higher cost (i.e. FLIR). Axis’ new Q1910 indoor model (SRP $2999) and Q1910-E outdoor version (SRP $3499) are intended to target a new group of security and surveillance users, including local and city governments, transportation, retail and education organizations.

The cameras support H.264 and Motion JPEG, audio, local storage and power over Ethernet (PoE), and also include tampering alarms and motion detection. The thermal cameras are able to see through complete darkness and deliver images that allow operators to detect and act on suspicious activity. They can also allow operators to see in difficult weather conditions (i.e. haze, dust and smoke) better than conventional cameras.

Axis' new thermal imaging cameras are expected to hasten the technology's market penetration.

Axis General Manager (and longtime IP technology crusader) Fredrik Nilsson always makes a compelling case and the presentation he shared with me on these new cameras and their technology was no exception. The cameras’ capabilities, lower price point and Axis’ strong brand reputation add up to a powerful opportunity for not only the manufacturer but also its reseller partners. The applications and possibilities seem practically endless. Following are a few of the questions and answers from my discussion with Nilsson.

What made Axis decide to offer thermal technology cameras?

Fredrik Nilsson: One of the reasons we have the opportunity today to make cost-efficient thermal products is because many consumer industries have started to use those kinds of sensors, and by using those sensors they drive up volume which in turn drives down the prices of the sensors. If you look at some of the luxury cars made today they have thermal cameras included in the cars to help the drivers see if there is an animal or person on the side of the road in the middle of the night.

What type of competition do you see out there?

Nilsson: There is no real company that is focusing on the security market in thermal imaging today. You mostly see it in government. The main reason is because the price point has been so high until now.

Will these cameras work well with advanced functions such as video analytics?

Nilsson: Thermal imaging works very well with video analytics. I think finally with thermal cameras, we will have the kind of accuracy we need in this area. Also key here is the cameras are open for other providers to write algorithms to, which is really aimed at the analytics companies. There are a lot of specialized applications and technologies that we are not the pros on and so we let them write the applications to run on the cameras.

Does the size of the thermal video itself differ from standard surveillance?

Nilsson: The way you measure the sensitivity of a thermal camera though is in terms of its range. They are more sensitive on longer range because they are detecting differences in temperature, but the sizes of the image are actually smaller because they do not need the detail of standard cameras.

What will the cameras pick up, animals as well as humans? Can you adjust the sensitivity?

Nilsson: Anything that has a different heat or temperature. Even quite small differences will be detected. You cannot adjust the sensitivity as that is determined by the sensor, but you can change the color scheme to make it appear on screen in the way that makes it easiest for the operator to detect and read.

Fredrik Nilsson is general manager of Axis Communications

How does Axis’ thermal imaging technology differ from that of Bosch’s Extreme CCTV?

Nilsson: For the most part, the technology Extreme uses is near-infrared, which basically still uses some level of light to bounce off the subjects. It is not as sensitive or able to detect to the extent that true thermal imaging can. I think the only company doing anything similar to this would be FLIR, and they are focused a lot on other markets like government, automotive and marine.

Does Axis’ thermal technology differ appreciably from what FLIR offers or is it pretty much apples to apples, just less expensive?

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Shortly before the end of the year, I had the opportunity to speak with Steve Walin, chairman and CEO of Carrollton, Texas-based GVI Security Solutions, and Lloyd Trotter, a founder and managing partner of New York-based GenNx360 Capital Partners, about GVI being acquired and taken private. The deal, which was finalized earlier this month, reunites former GE Security executives in a business focused on providing Samsung and GVI branded video surveillance solutions for markets including government, retail, financial and education.

This is the second of two parts of my conversation with GVI Security's new leadership and dwells on Samsung's unified rebranding plan for 2010, plus a host of industry issues from GE Security's sale to United Technologies Corp. (UTC) to surveillance growth projections and much more. You can access the first part of the discussion, which touches on how the GVI-GenNx360 deal came together, what it means moving forward and hot new technologies such as AutoIP and the A1 camera chip, right here.

One of the ongoing issues with Samsung in the North American security space has been confusion between the Samsung Techwin and Samsung Electronics brands, which we’ve talked about before. Will GenNx360’s involvement and the new structure help provide some additional differentiation between the companies in the marketplace?

Steve Walin: You may not be aware that Samsung has announced the merger between those two businesses. There was an announcement done in Korea about two months ago, and I’m not sure that it made it here to any large U.S.-based announcement so you have the scoop! Effective Jan. 1, Samsung’s video surveillance business and Samsung Techwin’s CCTV business are coming together to form one Samsung security type business. Both companies are literally being merged together, so they are indeed organizations that are being combined and so on. So, where we see this eventually evolving to is that there will be one Samsung product line, and it won’t be called Electronics; it won’t be called Techwin. It’ll be called Samsung. And, we’ll play a major role in rolling that out for the Americas as we have for Samsung Electronics for the last 10 years. Those discussions are ongoing right now, and I think you’ll be hearing some news about how all that’s going to work and what it’s all going to look like in early January. We are really thrilled that this decision has been taken at the Samsung group level in Korea, and that these two businesses are going to be put together and end the confusion that has been taking place in the market for the last several years.

Lloyd Trotter: The good thing about it is I think they saw the same confusion and conflicts, and they took the action to begin to alleviate that. I think with that clarity it’s going to be, “Everybody, now let’s work on what’s important,” and that’s how do we grow faster?

GVI Security was honored for 10 years of service to Samsung Electronics at ISC West 2009. GVI CEO Steve Walin is pictured second from right.

Lloyd, given your background and vantage point, were you very surprised by GE selling off its whole security division?

Trotter: Surprised? No, because the rumor has been out there for quite awhile. I’m a little bit disappointed in that since I got them into the security arena and it’s a space that I still like. Unfortunately, our funds aren’t big enough, but we would have loved to do that transaction.

Did you think it would be UTC?

Trotter: Well, yeah. The normal suspect customers were hanging around. It’s a business that’s roughly $2 billion in sales and it had to be a large player to take it down. I think what I read in the press, they paid roughly a $1.8 billion for it. That’s a pretty big check to write in this environment.

Speaking of the environment, what are you each of you seeing, as we’re moving into 2010 here, for the business community from sort of the big perspective, and more specifically, the part of the industry that you